[governance] ICANN head warns against putting Internet addresses

[S. Subbiah]

Bertrand,

I leave the debate of whether ICANN is nimble or not (relative to others 
are not) to the collective judgement of all observers - the record I 
think clearly speaks for itself.

However, ss someone who headed the Singapore team that first went to an 
ICANN Chairman at ICANN's first meeting in March 1999 and offered the 
availability of IDN (having been largely concieved and invented at the 
National University of Singapore in 1997/8) and championed its cause 
since and as such probably know the history of IDN more than anyone else 
alive today, I find it offensive that Rod elects to give the example of 
IDN introduction as a centerpeice of ICANN's "nimbleness".

In particular he uses the example of ".misr"  (the name of egypt in 
arabic) - since the interview happens to be in Egypt. My company happens 
to have a copy of a contract signed in 2000 (predating ICANN's first 
interest in IDN in late 2000) by the same EGNIC for launching the same 
.misr (all technology was supplied and and in the end they did not 
launch it back then for various reasons inclduing ICANN's sudden 
interest in IDN). Oddly it was counter-signed by the then EGNIC chief, 
who is now the Minister of Information Technology of Egypt who recently 
launched virtually the same thing a decade later.

In truth all ICANN did was delay things 10 years. If that is the best 
crowing example of ICANN's nimbleness, I wonder what slow is.

And the fact that a new CEO who happens to proclaim widely that the IDN 
launch was historic and one of the most important things, if not the 
most important one, to happen to the Internet, is completely unaware of 
such IDN history and uses a failure in nimbleness as an example of great 
nimbleness, only highlights what Wolfgang said - ICANN has repeated 
itself for so long, over and over again, with new sets of unaware people 
proclaiming the old now new again. And the irony is that our new CEO is 
at it as well - no one can escape the curse of procrastination.  If a 
failure in nimbleness of an organization can be celebrated  as  the 
epitome of nimbleness by the mouthpiece of that organization, the 
question of whether that organization is nimble or not pretty much 
answers itself.

Perhaps it is simply nimble in its own mind.

Cheers

Subbiah



Bertrand de La Chapelle wrote:

> ICANN, NIMBLE ???? :-))
>
> Not that replacing it with a UN body would improve things. The 
> challenge is how to build a more international, more globally 
> accountable and public interest oriented ICANN, not the mere 
> alternative : either the way ICANN (dis)functions today or another, 
> even more unappealing option. The AoC paves a way forward. Will we 
> collectively be able to move in the right direction ? That is the 
> right question. 
>
> B.
>
> On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com 
> <mailto:gpaque at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     ICANN head warns against putting Internet addresses under UN control
>
>     Posted by Andrew Adams:
>
>     This (Canadian) Globe and Mail article includes details of
>     Beckstrom's recent
>     statements against UN oversight of ICANN.
>
>     http://tinyurl.com/38m78m2
>
>     Summary: UN oversight would make ICANN "less nimble" according to
>     Beckstrom.
>
>     My opinion: could ICANN really be any less nimble given how
>     glacial it is at
>     introducing innovative ideas? Perhaps more international oversight
>     could
>     pressure ICANN into prioritising the real needs of users and less the
>     concerns of staff which may or may not coincide with user needs.
>
>     -- 
>     Professor Andrew A Adams
>     Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration, and
>     Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
>     Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan
>
>
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>
> -- 
> ____________________
> Bertrand de La Chapelle
> Délégué Spécial pour la Société de l'Information / Special Envoy for 
> the Information Society
> Ministère des Affaires Etrangères et Européennes/ French Ministry of 
> Foreign and European Affairs
> Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32
>
> "Le plus beau métier des hommes, c'est d'unir les hommes" Antoine de 
> Saint Exupéry
> ("there is no greater mission for humans than uniting humans")
>
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